South Carolina governor issues order banning state funding for Planned Parenthood

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has issued an executive order that bans state agencies from providing funds to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

The order, issued on Friday, prevents the state from providing funds "via grant, contract, state-administered funds, or any other form" to any physician or doctor's office affiliated with an abortion facility.

McMaster's office indicated that the new mandate would apply to "any physician or professional medical practice affiliated with an abortion clinic and operating concurrently with - and in the same physical, geographic location or footprint as - an abortion clinic."

"There are a variety of agencies, clinics, and medical entities in South Carolina that receive taxpayer funding to offer important women's health and family planning services without performing abortions," the governor said, according to Life Site News.

"Taxpayer dollars must not directly or indirectly subsidize abortion providers like Planned Parenthood," he added.

According to Life Site News, the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Health and Environmental Control will publicly release a list of all qualified non-abortion women's health and family planning providers within a 25-mile radius of abortion facilities that are no longer eligible to receive state funding.

In response to the ban, Planned Parenthood issued a statement calling McMaster's order "politically motivated." The abortion organization contended that its facilities provide health care services to almost 4,000 people a year in South Carolina.

"We will not stop fighting to protect our patients' access to health care," said Jenny Black, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.

The Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion policy, noted that there were seven facilities providing abortions in South Carolina in 2014, including a clinic operated by Planned Parenthood in Columbia.

Between 2010 and 2015, Planned Parenthood reportedly received about $300,000 in combined state and federal Medicaid funding for "non-abortion services" in South Carolina.

Elizabeth Nash, an analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, noted that Indiana and Arizona had attempted to enact similar restrictions on state funding for abortion providers, but they were overturned in court.

Federal law prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life is in danger.

In April, President Donald Trump signed a law that allowed states to defund Planned Parenthood, which has been accused of being involved in a number of high-profile scandals, including the sale of aborted baby parts, covering up child sex abuse and accepting racist donations.